Private payrolls rose 41,000, slightly below expectations,

Private sector job creation turned positive in December though at a bit softer pace than expected, payrolls processing firm ADP reported Wednesday.

Companies added 41,000 hires for the month, a reversal from the loss of 29,000 in November, providing a positive sign for a labor market that otherwise struggled as 2025 came to a close. Private company payrolls had declined in three of the four months before the December release.

The final tally was slightly less than the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 48,000.

Payroll growth came entirely in services industries as education and health-related fields added 39,000 jobs and leisure and hospitality contributed 24,000. Trade, transportation and utilities gained 11,000 while financial services rose by 6,000.

Offsetting those gains were losses of 29,000 in professional and business services and 12,000 in information services.

Goods-producing industries lost 3,000, due primarily to a drop of 5,000 in manufacturing.

Nearly all the job gains came in companies employing fewer than 500 workers. Larger firms added just 2,000.

“Small establishments recovered from November job losses with positive end-of-year hiring, even as large employers pulled back,” said ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson.

The November total was revised form an initially reported loss of 32,000.

Wage gains continued to be tempered, with those staying in their jobs seeing an average annual increase of 4.4%, unchanged from November, while job changers saw gains of 6.6%, or 0.3 percentage point better than the prior month.

The report comes two days ahead of the more closely watched nonfarm payrolls count from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. BLS data collection had been hampered by the government shutdown. This will be the first on-time release of the report since the impasse was resolved.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect 73,000 new jobs for the month, up from 64,000 in November, while the unemployment rate is seen edging down to 4.5%.